Retail Electric Provider Improves Customer Interaction Via Genesys

Retail electric provider Stream Energy and Genesys, an Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert) company, today announced that Stream has installed Genesys' Customer Interaction Management Platform to create a state-of-the-art customer service system in order to keep pace with the Stream’s dynamic growth.

With the initial installation now complete, Stream Energy’s new approach to customer service is expected to dramatically reduce hold times, eliminate the need for customers to repeat information after arriving at a live customer care representative and allow customers to schedule a callback at a time convenient for them. In the first month since the installation, overall talk times for Stream Energy agents have decreased by nearly 30 percent, 25 percent of customers have shown a preference for using the new self-service options, and almost 90 percent of customers using the callback feature are finding that it meets their needs.

The modular nature of the Genesys (News - Alert) Customer Interaction Platform allows every additional investment in Genesys software to integrate with the existing infrastructure and increase its value by adding new features. For example, Stream Energy is now using the Genesys Voice Platform to give customers 24/7 self-service access to their accounts, allowing them to perform simple tasks such as checking account balances, locating pay stations or making payments by issuing voice commands over the telephone.

“We simply weren’t satisfied with the time it was taking for us to handle customer inquiries,” said Greg Martin, Stream Energy Manager of Special Projects. “The installation of the Genesys software platform marks the completion of the first major step in ‘The Customer Experience’ campaign at Stream, and is the first of many customer-centric enhancements aimed at improving the interaction experience for our customers.”

“These technologies will improve customer service at Stream Energy by ending the frustration of long hold times, decreasing demand for agent time, and controlling costs by enabling Stream Energy to offer personalized customer service without adding new staff,” said Paul Segre (News - Alert), president and CEO, Genesys.

Licensed by the Texas Public Utilities Commission in 2005 as a Retail Electric Provider, Stream Energy serves nearly 300,000 customers. The growth of the firm and the corresponding increase in customers made it nearly impossible to keep pace with the volume of customer service inquiries.

As part of the new system, Stream Energy is working with a Genesys partner, speech provider Nuance (News - Alert) Communications, to ensure callers are understood completely so requests can be handled quickly and efficiently.

The third important element of Stream Energy’s “The Customer Experience” campaign is Virtual Hold Technologies, another Genesys partner. Virtual Hold provides a software system that tracks callers who have waited on hold for a certain period of time and offers an opportunity for the customer to schedule a call back by a Stream representative at a time that is convenient for the customer.

Martin said the millions of dollars invested by Stream Energy in the Genesys platform, along with the speech recognition and virtual hold capabilities, represents just the start of a long-term commitment to providing cutting-edge communications for its customers. Future plans for 2008 include implementing skills-based routing that will send callers directly to Stream Energy personnel who are specialists in the areas for which the customer requests assistance.

For more information, visit www.genesyslab.com.